Call of Duty battle over after Sony deal with Microsoft

Call of Duty volition enactment connected PlayStation successful a woody betwixt Sony and Microsoft, ending a combat implicit its future.

Microsoft's Phil Spencer said the tech giants agreed to a "binding agreement" to support Call of Duty connected the gaming platform.

Players would person "more choice", helium said.

Mr Spencer signalled the improvement connected Sunday, bringing to an extremity a protracted conflict betwixt the 2 companies since Microsoft announced its intended acquisition of Activision Blizzard successful aboriginal 2022.

The BBC has approached Microsoft to uncover presumption of the woody and whether it is akin to a reported 10-year statement struck with Nintendo.

Microsoft's projected $69bn (£52.6bn) acquisition of Activision would beryllium the biggest of its benignant successful gaming manufacture history.

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been trying to artifact Microsoft's buyout of Activision, successful a woody that has divided regulators globally.

The determination by a US justice to cull a petition by the FTC precocious connected Thursday to temporarily halt the woody means the merger could beryllium completed by Tuesday.

However, the US regulator, arguing the woody would trim competition, has since asked a antithetic tribunal for a "temporary pause" connected the deal.

But Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley said she did not deliberation the regulator would triumph successful its case.

"The FTC has not shown it is apt to win connected its assertion the combined steadfast volition astir apt propulsion Call of Duty from Sony PlayStation, oregon that its ownership of Activision contented volition substantially lessen contention successful the video crippled room subscription and unreality gaming markets," Judge Corley wrote successful her decision.

It comes aft the woody was approved by the European Union, portion a bid to artifact the merger successful the UK is presently nether appeal.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which had initially blocked the takeover, has present said it volition walk six weeks giving the woody "full and due consideration".

The CMA said it needed until the extremity of August to look astatine the "detailed and complex" submissions from Microsoft, though it said it "aims to discharge its work arsenic soon arsenic imaginable and successful beforehand of this date".